‘Splash’ Group Helps Kids of Color Learn to Swim
| AR Articles on Racial Differences |
|---|
| Race and Psychopathic Personality (Jul. 2002) |
| Race and Teenage Pregnancy (Feb. 2002) |
| The Biological Reality of Race (Oct. 1999) |
| Why Race Matters (Oct. 1997) |
| Race and Health (May 1996) |
| A New Theory of Racial Differences (Dec. 1994) |
| Search AmRen.com for Racial Differences |
| More news stories on Racial Differences |
{snip}
“We found the majority of the kids that come through our program do not know how to swim. They’re petrified,” Vaughn [Lisa Vaughn, swim isntructor]said.
Vaughn is among the instructors for the Make a Splash program, a joint venture of the Boys and Girls Clubs and USA Swimming, the governing body for competitive swimming in the United States.
Make a Splash provides free or low-cost swimming lessons to inner-city minority children. The group’s goal is to reduce the drowning rate among African-Americans and Hispanics.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that nine people die from drowning in the United States every day. Among racial groups, the CDC reported, African-Americans have the most limited swimming ability.
{snip}
“We see the disproportionate drownings in communities of color because generationally those parents and grandparents did not have the opportunity or access to quality swim programming,” Cruzat said [John Cruzat, diversity specialist for the group]. “As a result they didn’t pass it along to their children.”
{snip}
(Posted on May 27, 2008)
Comments
In San Francisco many years ago, there was a swimming pool not being used, and it was locked down(not good enough). Two black youths broke into it, got into the water,discovered that they could not swim, and drowned.The black community was angry that the pool wasnt drained.
Posted by Peejay in Frisco at 7:05 PM on May 27
Here we go again with the “Its all whitey’s fault that our kids do not know how to swim” garbage. It has been 2 generations since segregated swimming pools were outlawed and there is no excuse for black kids to not have a basic proficiency in swimming so they can save themselves if they fall in accidentally.
Posted by Spartan24 at 7:31 PM on May 27
Water was invented by the CIA to drown black people. How did Reverend Wright ever miss this?
Posted by Civilized Neighbor at 7:36 PM on May 27
put some fair skinned girls at the other end of the pool and those young african american boys will be standing in line to sign up,,
Posted by toonces at 8:14 PM on May 27
While they’re at it, these leftists should sue the government into legislating blacks lighter bones, smaller limbs, larger torsos, greater lung capacity, and higher body fat percentages. Leftists would throw a party - their subconscious goal of making blacks into whites would be that much closer to realization.
Posted by Svigor at 8:22 PM on May 27
Oh come on! We all know the real reason that more African-Americans and Hispanics are drowning compared to Whites is because of the fact that “THE WATER IS RACIST”
Posted by Gerry at 9:42 PM on May 27
And the beat goes on.
“Make a Splash provides free or low-cost swimming lessons to inner-city minority children. The group’s goal is to reduce the drowning rate among African-Americans and Hispanics.”
Amazing how taxpayer dollars can be used to benefit “minority” children and exclude white kds. Anyone care to guess how loud an uproar there would be if a taxpayer funded program were started for white kids only? Even if a privately funded organization started a program to benefit white kids only the outrage would be heard worldwide. Where is the outrage when whites are excluded?
Posted by Mike Harrigan at 9:45 PM on May 27
“We see the disproportionate drownings in communities of color because generationally those parents and grandparents did not have the opportunity or access to quality swim programming…” - John Cruzat, (diversity specialist for the group)
No, we see parents who expect “quality” swimming lessons to automatically be provided for their children by white people.
Posted by Janelle at 9:56 PM on May 27
Quality swim programs?? Here is how I learned to swim at the local public pool: An older boy in our neighborhood held me parallel to the surface of the water. ” Start kicking your legs”, he told me. “Now move your arms!”. As I did this, he set me down in the water… Waddaya know! I was swimming. Crude but effective. See, we used to help each other; not shoot each other.
Posted by queequeg at 10:28 PM on May 27
Hell, black Africans don’t swim either, and they have owned their own countries and run off the few white folks decades ago.
Swimming is a white thing. They just don’t understand.
Posted by Big Bill at 10:57 PM on May 27
A few years ago the Council of Conservative Citizens wrote an article about the disproportionate number of black drowning victims titled “Dat Ole Racist Water.”
I still get a chuckle out of that.
Posted by Madison Grant at 12:08 AM on May 28
One could argue then, that the safest place for a White is in a swimming pool.
Posted by Sensitivity Trainer at 12:30 AM on May 28
What do they want to do now?
Drown some white kids to equalize the drowning quota?
Posted by E. Burger at 2:30 AM on May 28
If you are ever threatened by a group of Blacks at the beach, head for the water.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 2:45 AM on May 28
How many white kids learn to swim from their parents? I didn’t. But somehow it’s all the “legacy of slavery” again.
I suppose it could be worse. At least they’re not proposing to drown white kids (yet) in the quest for equal outcomes.
Posted by at 5:10 AM on May 28
In all my years in Africa it was common and truthful knowledge that African Blacks are scared of water, even those who have grown-up several generations in towns with swimming pools available for their use.
Something to do with crocodiles or hippopotamuses perhaps that is embedded in their brains? Not a disparagement, but a simple fact.
I believe that it is vital that all humans learn to swim competently and when I was young at school we had to take a life-saving course for which we received certificates until the final after a few months, a bronze medallion. I still have mine and it included swimming in a pool, fully clothed rescuing another who was also fully clothed, at the age s of 12 - 13 years. It was not easy but something to be proud of and it never leaves your brain that you can do it. Imagine witnessing a child drowning because you never learnt to swim. Or even a gorgeous girl (I may be 70 but I still love pretty women. I am married to one).
Posted by Brian Deller at 6:33 AM on May 28
I learned to swim in water I could always stand up in. When I got thrown into ten feet of water, I was very scared, but I could swim. One of the other kids in my class was a lot more scared than I was.
Swimming isn’t hard. The teacher said, “You have to do it,” so I went in.
The depth of the water isn’t what matters. How fast the water is moving is what matters, and what temperature it is.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 7:01 AM on May 28
Make a Splash provides free or low-cost swimming lessons to inner-city minority children. The group’s goal is to reduce the drowning rate among African-Americans and Hispanics.
Groups are brain storming how to set up programs for “disadvantanged” youth because they know that is a cash cow. It’s a business and the customers are the tax-payers - they just don’t have a choice.
How long have swimming pools been around? Most people I knew swam in rivers, lakes, and the ocean. Growing up, we loved swimming and spent summers in our bathing suits - slept and showered in them, too. I put “floaties” on my toddler’s arms until they were comfortable in the water on their own - they cost about 99 cents at the drug store…Oh, and my mother didn’t know how to swim, so she didn’t pass that on to me.
Posted by at 7:05 AM on May 28
“We see the disproportionate drownings in communities of color because generationally those parents and grandparents did not have the opportunity or access to quality swim programming…”
no
because there is a genetic inability to swim, not because of Whitey.
Posted by at 7:44 AM on May 28
I would have to disagree with Sensitivity Trainer as a swimming pool being the safest place for Whites. The safest place has to be a tossup between a library or an opera house. At one time the library was the hands down winner, but that has probably changed since most libraries have computers and video games on site.
Posted by Great White Observer at 9:57 AM on May 28
My experience in high school and my impresssion as a doctor is that blacks have higher bone mass than whites and Asians. They are sinkers, plain as that. But I could see that some of it might be cultural, since the water in Africa AND the Southeast of the U.S. has always had dangerous creatures in it.
Posted by Whiteplight at 1:05 PM on May 28
If the black kids would quit stealing more chain than they can swim with, there would be less drownings!
Posted by at 2:45 PM on May 28
I remeber being in Marine Corps boot camp and we had to learn to swim. We had to jump into the deep end of the pool,and with our legs push up to the surface. There was this one really mean ghetto black guy and he was scared to ‘deff’ of jumping in. He never did do it. Blacks are naturally scared of water.I dont know what ever happened to my “friend”,probably dead by now. Man he was one mean ugly dude!!!
Posted by sam francis at 2:45 PM on May 28
“We see the disproportionate drownings in communities of color because generationally those parents and grandparents did not have the opportunity or access to quality swim programming…”
That’s nonsense. How hard could it be to sign your kids up for swimming lessons?
Posted by at 5:10 PM on May 28
I suspect that this racial disparity in drownings is just some monkeyshine rhetoric to justify government funding. The Make A Splash people need to get real jobs instead of finding more excuses to hang out at the pool.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 1:26 AM on May 30
Re Brian Deller’s comment, the reason blacks in Africa are afraid to enter water shows one of their few intelligent traits. Most lakes, streams and rivers are infected with bilharzia, as nasty as tse-tse fly.
Posted by ciccio at 11:13 AM on May 30